MUMBAI: Indian all-rounder Yuvraj Singh has been dropped from the One-Day International squad that will be touring New Zealand. Yuvraj showed poor form in South Africa which is the reason for his axing.

The BCCI, that announced the squad in Mumbai today, has given a chance to newcomers Ishwar Pandey and Stuart Binny. Fast bowler Varun Aaron who is fit again has been included in the team instead of Mohit Sharma who also failed to impress in South Africa. Pragyan Ojha has been left out from the Test squad.

Yuvraj has been in poor form since his comeback in the series against Australia in October. He did not perform in the home series against the West Indies or in the ODI series in South Africa. Therefore it was expected that he would be dropped.

Haryana pace bowler Mohit Sharma who has been expensive in South Africa has also faced the music and has been left out of the team.

Madhya Pradesh fast bowler Ishwar Pandey has received his maiden call for the Test as well as One Day squad presumably because of his showing in the Ranji trophy.

All-rounder Stuart Binny plays for Karnataka in the Ranji. He is the son of BCCI selector and former Indian all-rounder Roger Binny.

India will have pacers Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishwar Pandey and Bhuvneshwar Kumar for the Tests and spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. The batting department will be the same as that in South Africa.

JAMMU: Cricketers of the Jammu and Kashmir Ranji team were questioned for hours in the dead of the night by policemen searching for suspected militants. The state team is playing in the ongoing Ranji trophy in Jammu.

Yesterday, a senior member of the J&K cricket team, Samiullah Beigh, had written on his Facebook page: “Could not sleep whole night….Police came to search our hotel at midnight and questioned us for hours at 1:15am in the night.” He had said that the players were in shock and horror to find uniformed people with guns surrounding them when they were fast asleep.

Embarrassed by reports in newspapers today, the Jammu and Kashmir police came out in its defense today.

Addressing a press conference in Jammu, Rajesh Kumar said that the ‘routine’ check was carried out at several locations in the area including the hotel in which the players were putting up. However, after the police officials came to know about the identity of cricketers, they left the hotel, he claimed. The police officials also denied that any of the players were questioned for hours.

The players however said that it was a mental trauma for them ahead of their crucial match in the tournament. They rued the attitude of the police. “Whether deliberate harassment or routine checkup. Surely this is not the way to treat bunch of guys with national and international repute, especially when you are playing the most important match of the J&K cricket history,” Samiullah Beigh said.

The senior player also underlined that the state team may now lose its match as it was under a state of shock. “Honestly I am not expecting any wonders today (Wednesday). We may easily lose the game and hence the chances of our qualification to the quarterfinals may vanish,” he said. The following day, Hyderabad bowled Jammu and Kashmir out for 299 to take the first innings lead.In response, Hyderabad made 514 taking a lead of 215 runs in the first innings.

HYDERABAD: Bharatiya Janata Party’s grandeur “Run for Unity” marathon today witnessed the participation of former cricketer VVS Laxman in Hyderabad. Party’s spokesperson Prakash Javadekar was also spotted at the event.

People in lakhs gathered up to take part in the marathon which is being seen as a major mobilisation event for the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s dream project of building a giant statue of Sardar Patel.

Modi himself kicked off the marathon in Vadodara, Gujarat, while senior leader LK Advani kicked off the march in Ahmedabad. The marathon has been planned at 564 locations across the country. Senior leaders of the BJP including Rajnath Singh Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Ananth Kumar will be flagging off the march at different locations.

The marathon coincides with the death anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and with it will begin collection of the iron scrap for a giant “Statue of Unity” of Patel touted as the world’s tallest.

JOHANNESBURG: Having won consecutive cricket series at home and earned the World No 1 ranking in ODIs, Team India may have least expected the hammering they received at the hands of South Africa in the first One-Day International in Jonnesburg on Thursday. The Men in Blue were not only completely outplayed in all three departments by the hosts but were also shown what awaits them in the next three and half weeks in South Africa. India lost the ODI by 141 runs and were outplayed in all the three departments of the game – batting, bowling and fielding.

MS Dhoni summed up the performance as bad at the post match press conference. But the match actually betrayed a lacklustre Indian side vulnerable to pace and bounce.

South Africa taught their Indian counterparts plenty of lessons. While their batsmen made full use of the inexperienced Indian attack, posting a mammoth 358 for 4 in 50 overs, their bowlers displayed fine skills of swing bowling, defeating the Indian batsmen’s bat on numerous occasions.

Hosts South Africa produced a clinical all-round performance as they crushed India by 141 runs runs in the first one day international taking a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

This is the second biggest margin of victory by the South Africans against India in the ODIs played between the two teams.

After hammering the Indian bowlers into submission with a massive score of 358 for four, the five-pronged South African pace attack came out all guns blazing to bowl out the visitors for 217 in 41 overs. It was thorough professional performance by South Africa as Indians were outplayed in all departments.

MUMBAI: Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, who is enjoying a new inning of his life post retirement, has a lot of faith and expectations from the present batch of Indian cricketers. Tendulkar said that the next batch of cricketers was doing really well after his retirement, the last from a batch of senior players like Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.

He underlined that Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan and Cheteshwar Pujara were first introduced into one day cricket and then got into Test cricket which was the right progression.

The Master Blaster has always kept his personal life under wraps, but in a candid tete-a-tete, he also opened up about the special moments he missed out in the lives of his children during his 24-year-old career. “I would like to make up for that. Whatever time lost with them – their birthday parties, outings with them-when they wanted to go out with me, I was not there sometimes,” said the cricket maestro.

Team India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been selected in the ICC Test as well as ODI team of the year besides being named the captain of the ICC ODI team of the year. Virat Kohli, who has made a mark by scoring consistently in ODIs however could not make the cut.

Even ICC Chief Executive David Richardson acknowledged that the shining Indian cricketer has been unlucky to have not been selected in the ICC ODI team of the year. He believed that Kohli will make it to the team next year.

England’s James Anderson, South Africa’s Hashim Amla and Australia’s Michael Clarke have been nominated for top honours at this year’s International Cricket Council awards.

ICC’s Chief Executive David Richardson said today after announcing the ICC’s Test and ODI teams of 2013: “Kohli is one of the players who should consider himself unlucky not to get selected, especially in the ODI team of the year. In these awards it’s more a case of who gets left out rather than who gets in. There’s tremendous competition for places.”

Anderson, Amla and Clarke have been shortlisted for both the cricketer of the year and the Test player of the year awards.

Others shortlisted for the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for cricketer of the year are England skipper Alastair Cook, India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka.

In the category of Test player of the year, the other nominees are South African fast bowler Dale Steyn and the Indian duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Cheteshwar Pujara.

The short-lists in 10 award categories were drawn up by an independent 32-person committee comprising former players and representatives from the media, match referees and umpires.

NEW DELHI: A recent Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) tender for ‘logo rights’ is being given the cold shoulder by advertisers, even though the board has slashed the base price by over a third to Rs 1.5 crore per match.

The last such tender for ‘logo rights’ – where the brand gets visibility on the blue jerseys of Indian team members – was bagged by Sahara Group for an estimated Rs 481-558 crore. This tender – for all matches between July 1, 2010, and December 31, 2013 – ha ..